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On Wednesday, giving a keynote speech in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, the US president Barack Obama has said that a lot more requires to be done to restore frayed US relations with the Muslim world. He was addressing a 6,000-strong audience, mainly students, at the national university in the capital, Jakarta.

US president said, “Just as individuals are not defined solely by their faith, Indonesia is defined by more than its Muslim population,”

“But we also know that relations between the United States and Muslim communities have frayed over many years. As president, I have made it a priority to begin to repair these relations.” he said

Obama, who spent 4 years in Indonesia as a young boy, praised Indonesia as an good example of successful religious co-existence.

He said, “Even as this land of my youth has changed in so many ways, those things that I learned to love about Indonesia – that spirit of tolerance that is written into your constitution, symbolised in your mosques and churches and temples, and embodied in your people – still lives on”.

His speech was an updated version of a most importent address he gave seventeen months ago in Cairo, where he announced a “new beginning” in US-Muslim relations after the tensions over the 9/11 attacks on the US & the former US administration’s response to them.

Obama said, “In the 17 months that have passed we have made some progress, but much more work remains to be done”.

“I said then, and I will repeat now, that no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust. But I believed then, and I believe today, that we have a choice. We can choose to be defined by our differences, and give into a future of suspicion and mistrust. Or we can choose to do the hard work of forging common ground, and commit ourselves to the steady pursuit of progress” he said.

The Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that 3 British soldiers are being investigated for allegations that they abused an Iraqi detainee.

The soldiers were adverted to a military prosecutor last month and could face war crimes charges, said a ministry spokeswoman, not giving the details of abuse allegations as the case was currently in process.

The ministry said in an emailed statement, “We have acknowledged that if these allegations do prove to be true then they could be prosecuted as war crimes,”

“That is why we have set up the Iraq Historical Allegations Team to investigate allegations thoroughly,” it said.

United Kingdom, Washington’s main ally in the 2003 US-led Iraq war, called back its last forces from the country in 2009.

The United States has rejected statement by Israel’s prime minister calling for a military threat against Iran to make certain it doesn’t get nuclear weapons.

On Monday, United States defence secretary Robert Gates said during a visit to Australia for security talks, “We know that they are concerned about the impact of the sanctions. The sanctions are biting more deeply than they anticipated and we are working very hard at this”.

“So I would disagree that only a credible military threat can get Iran to take the actions it needs to end its nuclear weapons programme”

“We are prepared to do what is necessary but at this point we continue to believe that the political-economic approach that we taking is in fact having an impact in Iran.” he said

On Sunday, the Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu, told US Vice President Joe Biden that only a “credible” military threat can prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, Israeli political sources said.

Iranian officials are admitting that international sanctions enforced on the Iran over its nuclear program have dramatically raised the cost of living, but they say the penalties will prove futile in the end.

Iran is under 4 sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions as well as other penalties by the United States and the European Union because of its refusal to halt a key aspect of its nuclear program.

On Saturday, Commerce Minister Mahdi Ghazanfari said that if the sanctions were really having an affect, then the U.N. would not have had to enforce 4 sets of penalties.

Mohammad Nahavandian Chamber of Commerce President did say the sanctions have driven up the cost of imports by thirty percent.